Cover Art by Debi Milligan
Of Cautious Steps
Poetry by Darren Black
$12.00
Praise for Of Cautious Steps
“Darren Black’s Of Cautious Steps is a sensory masterpiece: the strumming of an oud, the scratching of pencils across paper, coffee in a mug, of the “crest and wane in slow decay / that trained fingers can only revive, the release of our lives full / of cautious steps.” Here, we walk with the speaker, “Tap step. Tap step. Tap.” I was led by Black’s meticulous voice, and would read the poems out loud, for the sonic joy they brought. “Let me lengthen into the sun on my own.” Black’s poems have the reach of shadows. Of Cautious Steps holds “space in the garden / for the lilac’s return.”
-Jennifer Martelli, author of The Queen of Queens
Darren Black Reads “How to Love a Mermaid”
About the Author
Darren Black’s work has appeared in the Muddy River Poetry Review,
The Saranac Review online, Of Rust and Glass, and in Lily Poetry
Review’s anthology Voices Amidst the Virus. Of Cautious Steps is his
first poetry collection. He lives on Massachusetts’ north shore with his
life partner and has recently recently retired from a rehabilitation counseling
career. Darren, he/him, loves reading at local open mikes, playing
music, connecting with new friends and places through travel,
coaching adaptive sports, advocating for disability accommodations,
and teaching others about blindness through his own experience.
Author photo by Debi Milligan